Public arts agencies tend to drift from bold patronage to low‑risk, consensus picks as they grow and politicize. Early-stage, discretionary grantmaking can nurture groundbreaking work, while later bureaucratization pushes money toward safe or insider projects with little public impact. International examples, like French cinema subsidies, show elite steering can also produce lots of unseen output.
— This reframes arts policy around funding design, implying governments should favor small, discretionary mechanisms to sustain cultural innovation.
Robert Steven Mack
2025.10.10
66% relevant
The article criticizes state and supranational cultural policy that reduces art to economic externalities (e.g., the EU Cultural and Creative City Monitor) and overlooks informal scenes, aligning with the claim that bureaucratic, metrics‑driven systems steer art toward safe, instrumental outputs rather than vibrant, bottom‑up culture.
Alex Tabarrok
2025.09.23
100% relevant
Cowen’s claim that the NEA’s 1960s discretionary grants outperformed later bureaucratic processes, and his critique of elite‑driven French film subsidies producing films that "don’t really even get released."
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